


Trapped

by Wordmaker123



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, Karolina is self sacrificing, a little angsty, kinda sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 11:41:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13589307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wordmaker123/pseuds/Wordmaker123
Summary: Karolina never thought being held captive could turn out to be so tedious but she could honestly say that she had never been so bored.What would have happened if the others didn't go back for Karolina.





	Trapped

**Prompt - _'can you please do deanoru angst !!'_**

* * *

 

Karolina never thought being held captive could turn out to be so tedious but she could honestly say that she had never been so bored. 

Being stuck behind the same four walls with nothing to entertain herself with was a different kind of torture. The lack of distractions meant that her mind kept drifting to her friends. Jonah had assured her when she first woke up that they were safe but the ominous ‘for now’ he had tacked onto the end of the sentence didn’t ease her worries. 

Six days had passed, very slowly, since she had woken in the room. She had instantly recognised the familiar white panelling and decor. She was in the church, though she had never been in this particular room before. Her mother had kept a large portion of the headquarters off limits to those who weren’t ultra and she now understood why.

Since waking up her powers had been patchy at best. Her skin didn’t begin to glow again until the third day. Though it was gradual she knew her powers would eventually return so it was just a matter of biding her time until she was strong enough to escape. How she would find her friends after that was a different story.

The only visitor to her room so far had been Jonah. She pushed down the small part of her that wanted to ask where her parents were every time he strolled in with a plate of food for her. She resolved to ignore his attempts at casual conversation and didn’t miss the furious looks that flashed briefly over face each time she disregarded him. There were a few times when he lost his temper and raised his voice only to instantly calm when she flinched away. His shallow apologies afterwards were met with silence.

On the sixth day her monotonous routine was broken by shouting outside her door. She recognised the voice as her mom’s immediately but the tone was unfamiliar. All her life Leslie Dean had been the epitome of composed under pressure but Karolina could very clearly pick up on the distress in her voice.

Then the door opened and her mom was rushing in to hug her with Jonah following closely behind, a displeased expression on his face. 

“Mom?” her voice came out croaky from lack of use as she returned the hug, in that moment completely forgetting about the fact they were essentially enemies and only thinking about how safe she felt in her arms.

“I’m so sorry, Karolina.” She heard her mom whisper as she buried her face in Karolina’s hair. 

“Mom, I want to go home.” She felt the tears she had been holding back for six days brimming in her eyes as she mumbled pitifully. Karolina knew it was pathetic to be crying to her mother after everything that had happened but more than anything she just wanted things to go back to how they were. When she was blissfully unaware that the woman she was hugging was a murderer.

The thought had her breaking away quickly from the hug as if burned. She scooted backwards to the other end of the bed and eyed both the adults in the room warily. 

“No need for dramatics, Karolina. You know you’re parents would never hurt you.” Jonah rolled his eyes as he strode towards the table where the water jug was placed.

“You’re not my dad! Where is he?” she demanded as she realised he hadn’t arrived alongside her mom. She watched as the muscle in Jonah’s jaw tensed. He approached her and she flinched backwards only to have him hold out a glass of water for her instead.

“There’s no use denying a fact, Karolina.” His patronising tone grated on her as he set the water down on the bedside table when she didn’t move to take it. “In fact your mother here can vouch for me.” He stated and nodded his head at her mom who stayed silent. Karolina glared at him as he sat down on the bed.

“Now that you’re talking again I think it’s time we had a chat. Thank you, Leslie.” he nods his head dismissively in her moms direction.

“Jonah,  _ you said _ -” Her mom starts with an infuriated expression only to be interrupted by Jonah.

“I know what I said but Karolina and I have some important business to attend to.” Karolina can’t help but shrink back when he shoots her a smirk. “I’ll schedule some time for you to talk tomorrow.” he added with a resigned sigh.

“Mom, don’t go!” she protested distressed as she stood to leave. Despite knowing how evil her mother was she would rather be forced to be with her than Jonah. Honesty, she would take anyone over Jonah.

“I’ll be back tomorrow. I promise.” Karolina sat still in shock as she pressed a kiss to her forehead and promptly left the room, leaving her alone with Jonah once again.

She surveyed him carefully as he sat down on the edge of the bed. She wished he wouldn’t sit so close to her. There was a long pause as the clicking of her mom’s heels against the tiled floor grew fainter and fainter until it disappeared altogether. 

“I’m here to give you a warning.” Jonah informed her bluntly, the easy tone to his voice contrasting strangely with his words in a way that made her even more uncomfortable. “You’re powers should be returning full force quite soon. You and I both know how easily you could blast your way out of here…” he spoke slowly as he reached into his pocket and drew out a small black box. Karolina studied it cautiously. She watched as he held it up for her to see.

“Which is why I’ve bought an appropriate deterrent.” 

He pointed the box towards the mirror handing opposite her bed and Karolina gasped as the glass began to shimmer until it no longer showed her reflection. 

Instead it showed her friends huddled around a campfire in the middle of the woods. Chase and Gert were cuddled up to one another, leaning against a log as they slept. Alex opposite them with Molly’s head in his lap, both of them also deep asleep. And Nico, she was the only one awake. Her eyes were staring blankly into the fire as the others all rested around her. Karolina could tell just by the state of their clothes that they had been roughing it.

“They’ve been camped out in the hills a couple hours away for two days now.” Jonah told her with a disaffected shrug. “Not very good at being on the run, are they?” he chuckled. Karolina clenched her jaw to stop her jumping up and punching the smug grin from his face.

“Leave them alone.” She demanded in a deadly tone as the anger building in her began to surface in the form of her glow. She could feel the power she had been lacking flooding her system once again. She scrambled up from the bed with clenched fists.

“Oh please. If I wanted to kill them they would have been dead already.” 

“Well then why haven’t you?” she challenged as she felt the energy pulsing throughout her body. 

“If you’d sit down for a moment, I could explain.” He answered condescendingly.

Karolina took a few deep breaths to calm herself down as she reluctantly perched on the bed, as far away from Jonah as possible. 

“Explain.” she ordered and watched as he raised an eyebrow at her tone but continued anyway.

“They have never really interested me. Your friends. They’re more like pawns. You made a mistake in befriending them, it made you vulnerable.” he lectured her and she felt like screaming at him to get to the point. “Here’s the deal, Karolina. You don’t try and escape and I won’t harm them. Simple enough.” he shrugged. 

Karolina’s shoulders sagged in defeat as she watched her sleeping friends on the screen. Jonah left the room without waiting for an answer. He already knew what she was going to say anyway.

* * *

He left the mirror playing constantly. Day in and day out. He said it would serve as a reminder. She thought he was just being cruel. She wondered if it was her imagination that made it seem like the screen followed Nico.

There was something inconceivably depressing in knowing she could break out at any moment and be free, yet she has to hold back. 

Karolina was forced to watch as her friends all assumed she was dead and mourned her. She was always alone so she has no reservations in screaming at the screen that she was alive when Nico broke down in tears at a particularly blunt statement from Gert.

The isolation is slowly but surely got to her and although Leslie visits her everyday she is still alone for most of her time. She obsessively watched the screen, watched Nico, and forgot to eat so often that her mom began to force feed her. She found comfort in tracing Nico’s face gently whenever the screen focused on her.

In a moment of weakness she asked Jonah to let her out of the room, even just to walk around the corridor but he refused. Everyone still thought she was on the run with the others including the members of the church.

It was three months later when she watched Nico and Alex sitting by yet another one of their makeshift campfires that she was forced to see them kiss. It was slow and passionate and Karolina screamed. She threw a glass at the screen but it didn’t break, it never did. She had tried before.

She sobbed herself to sleep with the images of Nico and Alex burned into her brain and that was when she understood what Jonah was doing.

He wanted to make her hate them. 

What terrified her the most was that it was starting to work. She despised Gert for making Nico forget her. She loathed Molly and Chase for moving on so easily. Every time she saw Alex’s face on the screen the anger inside of her grew tenfold. But she couldn’t bring herself to hate Nico. Even after watching her and Alex kiss dozens of times all she felt was love. Hating her would be less painful.

When she had watched their first kiss she had been broken. Her mom had woken her late into the next day with breakfast but she refused to eat it. For days she stared blankly at the screen as Alex and Nico exchanged shy smiles throughout the day. Each flirtatious comment was like a dagger to her heart.

They had sex a month later and Karolina was numb. She buried her head under her pillow to block out the sounds and stayed there for hours. No tears came that time.

Not for the first time she wondered if it would be easier if she just damned them all and escaped. Clearly they had all moved on and why should Karolina be suffering when they didn’t care about her anymore. The thought of Nico being anywhere near to Jonah put a halt to any ideas she had pretty quickly. 

When Jonah came to speak to her the next morning she didn’t respond.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This was a prompt fill for an anon on Tumblr. I'm accepting prompts there @karolinasjeans.


End file.
